@Indigo Sundown
In regards to HoT being so unpopulated that you won’t be able to do hero points, with the mega server technology that’s pretty unlikely to happen at least not for many years.
I don’t know how many people are playing this game at any instant, but even old servers (before the game was free to play) usually had people to help you out, no matter what time I was playing. If I tagged up and used map chat, I’d get people. Anywhere any time, almost all the time. Maybe on a rare occasion I wouldn’t …but the next time I would anyway.
Out of all the people playing at any given time, are we assuming people won’t be running the HoT zones at all?
I mean hell there’s an entire guild dedicated to running Dry Top.
If the need is there, guilds will form for that too.
And in a worst case scenario you can make a friend or join a guild. I can’t think of any point in any map I can’t three man.
If I had any confidence in ANet’s ability to fix megaservers, I might agree with you.
Anything that removes gold from the game is a money sink. That includes buying mats on the TP because of the 15% the TP takes from the transaction. It also includes, buying recipes, etc.
If you gather the mats yourself, you aren’t removing gold from the economy. You are suffering from an opportunity cost, however, in terms of what you could have gained by selling those mats. If people lose the gold they could have gained by selling the mats, their account bank has less gold than if they weren’t pursuing the L. Item. The same result happens (though the amounts might be different) if they bought the mats. While it is inaccurate to consider an opportunity cost a gold sink, this is the internet, and people will use terms they think will influence opinion. Nevertheless, if people are talking about the cost of L. Items being a gold sink, it’s most likely they are thinking about having less gold as a result of the pursuit, than about removing gold from the economy.
Lastly, most peoples complaints about hot being too hard is that hero points aren’t soloable. Most of them are. There is a few champion mobs that aren’t, which frankly how many champions have you ever soloed in core tyria? There is more than enough hero points that are soloable (I know I’ve done one of every elite specs). My response to this complaint is go look up info and find out which ones are soloable and are not. It might take you 20 mins to do so but save you hours of frustration.
Frankly, I’ve soloed a lot more Champions in core than I have in HoT. The issue isn’t (in my mind at least) that there are “enough” HP’s available to unlock specs, it’s that HC’s are part of map exploration and that is about the only thing in core that rewards anything substantive to the player who prefers to solo. Yet, those rewards are paltry compared to what’s on offer if you do the herd events. In HoT, that part of exploration has been turned — at least in part — into an activity better done with a herd.
Also, up to now I’m still seeing people respond to requests for help at group event HC’s. However, what happens when the next XPac comes out? Surely Anet wants as many players as possible who did not buy HoT to buy the next one. Say they do. Now they’re trudging around HoT trying to do map complete and all of the early HoT adopters are gone. How tenable will these HC’s be, then?
All and all HoT isn’t hard at all, and if you think it is than I hate to be that guy, but you need to learn to adapt and play the game arena net have made for you.
With regard to “Shut up and play the game Anet made.” there is no difference between complaining about HoT being hard and complaining about core being easy. Would there have been increased difficulty in HoT if the people who complained about lack of difficulty had remained silent? With that kind of precedent, your advice is going to be ignored.
All of that said, I actually agree that HoT mobs, while objectively harder than some in core, can be mastered by average players. I also don’t think they are really harder than some in core (like some Karka; Molten Alliance; Aetherblades; Toxic Alliance; Revamped Risen; and revamped Krait). Thing is, players have by-and-large adapted to those mobs (or just avoid areas like SSC).
I think that a lot of the complaints about HoT difficulty stem from a combination of factors that make the zones tedious rather than fun for some people, like accessibility, navigation and gating. A harder mob can be learned or avoided, but someone could be cheesed off because they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get to a Mastery Point for an hour without using a Dulfy video. Frustration engenders a mental state foreign to the patience needed to adapt one’s play to mobs.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Casual
People keep using that word, without understanding what it means.
Casual is a distinction in amount played, not skill brought to the table.
I would argue that the meaning of some words, like casual, is so subjective as to be a useless term for debates. Even if we take it as a distinction in amount played, where is the line? How much do you have to play to go from casual to ..elite?
I value any attempt to clarify something but I think in the case of ‘casual’ we’re doomed to haggle over the meaning, if we’re looking for an absolute one. I think the only use we’re going to get out of it is in relative comparisons; e.g. Person X plays Y hours. I play Y + 5 hours, therefore person X is more casual than me.
Apart from that, I agree with the rest of your post and I do (now) enjoy the difficulty of HOT. It’s even got me excited to see what the next expansion might bring and.. if it might be a little harder still.
EDIT: typo
It doesnt matter, casual has an actual definition you use the word within the realm of the actual definition, not something based off ones opinion.
Definitions evolve over time. Definitions are static, while communication is dynamic.Terms get adapted to mean different things. In the process, communication can be… interesting, and misunderstandings happen.
Just on these boards, “casual” is being used to mean: lesser amounts of time spent; preference for a more relaxed experience over a more adrenaline-inducing one; a preference to just play aimlessly rather than to pursue a goal relentlessly; and doubtless other meanings.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to define such a word for oneself. That certainly lets readers understand your posts better. However, whether it’s “correct” to try to hold other people to that definition or not, it’s not going to happen.
I disagree, we cannot change the meaning of the word just because it fits our opinion, we need a universal langauge of set in stone definitions in the first place, make up your own instead of hijacking another word if you want to do that. And casual means laid back or not dedicating allot of time, or even little effort so it can be used for gamers who dont want to put much into a game with good rewards.
You can disagree all you like, but that isn’t going to change the fact that people do adapt words and aren’t going to stop doing so because you think they should.
If Destiny’s Edge (I or II), Pets and Necro minions are the benchmarks for NPC AI effectiveness, they wouldn’t be worth much.
Way before GW2 launched, ANet talked about the possibility of giving players the choice of having a companion helper or having better stats but no helper. ANet chose not to make this happen. They settled instead for Rangers giving up some performance for having a pet and made that pet non-optional.
While the idea of a a player choosing to give up some of his character’s effectiveness in exchange for a companion is intriguing, I see a number of issues.
- We have no idea why ANet abandoned the idea, or at least I don’t. Was it too difficult to program? AI behavior in the game suggests that is the case
- In order to make Ranger pets viable in harder content, Anet chose to give them a huge amount of damage reduction from AoE’s to counter their penchant for standing in the stuff. Such a buff would have to be given to “Heroes” or they’d die in harder content.
- Players used to their current degree of effectiveness are not going to want to give some of that up to have a stupid, simple AI follow them around. Instead, they’d be lobbying to have both halves of the cake.
- A flat increase with no loss of personal potency would create a balance issue. Also, ANet has tried very hard to avoid the impression that the store is Pay-to-Win, and the inclusion of purchasable power in the form of a companion would be inviting such claims, even if pay-to-win originally referred to competitive play.
- Rendering a lot of models is a problem for some players’ PC’s. Witness the plethora of complaints about lag and DC’s in large group events. The presence of Heroes would make this worse, as there would be more models to render.
- Most telling for me; ANet has spent a tremendous amount of dev time and money inventing and re-imagining features again, and again, and again. I’d much rather they tackled the challenge of producing more playable content on a more regular release schedule than spending resources on a feature, the idea for which they abandoned before launch.
Casual
People keep using that word, without understanding what it means.
Casual is a distinction in amount played, not skill brought to the table.
I would argue that the meaning of some words, like casual, is so subjective as to be a useless term for debates. Even if we take it as a distinction in amount played, where is the line? How much do you have to play to go from casual to ..elite?
I value any attempt to clarify something but I think in the case of ‘casual’ we’re doomed to haggle over the meaning, if we’re looking for an absolute one. I think the only use we’re going to get out of it is in relative comparisons; e.g. Person X plays Y hours. I play Y + 5 hours, therefore person X is more casual than me.
Apart from that, I agree with the rest of your post and I do (now) enjoy the difficulty of HOT. It’s even got me excited to see what the next expansion might bring and.. if it might be a little harder still.
EDIT: typo
It doesnt matter, casual has an actual definition you use the word within the realm of the actual definition, not something based off ones opinion.
Definitions evolve over time. Definitions are static, while communication is dynamic.Terms get adapted to mean different things. In the process, communication can be… interesting, and misunderstandings happen.
Just on these boards, “casual” is being used to mean: lesser amounts of time spent; preference for a more relaxed experience over a more adrenaline-inducing one; a preference to just play aimlessly rather than to pursue a goal relentlessly; and doubtless other meanings.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to define such a word for oneself. That certainly lets readers understand your posts better. However, whether it’s “correct” to try to hold other people to that definition or not, it’s not going to happen.
The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson.
This part is what I found most intriguing. What lesson did they learn?
honestly I’m not sure what there is to learn, HoT was everything I wanted…. granted, it was mostly the free stuff that came along with it like action cam, but I can’t imagine the game without autoloot, and raiding is fun and engaging, and the HoT area as a whole is great, the new classes and elite specs are super fun, not sure what people don’t like about it… but if they intend to do even more for the next expac, all the more power to them!
There have been numerous complaints about HoT:
Complaints about the business end:
- Costs too much (for what it offers)
- Core game bundled into HoT, Vets pay “full price” for “less”
- New profession but no free slot to make one
Complaints about difficulty in fights:
- Mobs are too hard
- Too many mobs swarm events
- Too much CC
- HP Champions can’t be soloed and/or will become untenable over time
- Mob density while running around is too high
Complaints about lack of fun:
- GH/scribing way too expensive
- Maps are too convoluted/difficult to navigate
- Too much grind in general
- Accessibility stinks due to timers and long chains
- Gated access to things like Adventures, HC’s etc. mean doing stuff (sometimes fairly lengthy stuff) you don’t want to do just to get to stuff you do want to do
While you may not have issues, there have been many expressed.
In the April changes, we saw events added (mostly “Kill the Vet or Champion”), rewards shifted to events in some cases (not in all), a few spawns removed, a few Champion heavy hits reduced and scribe/GH costs reduced a bit. I suspect addressing some of the other complaints would take more time than they’ve so far had, if in fact they have any interest in addressing anything else. Also, there have been enough issues expressed that we don’t really know which they’ll take counsel of.
If this is happening with any kind of frequency (about which I will reserve judgement), then it seems that:
- This behavior would be a function of laziness. Yes, laziness. People (apparently) couldn’t be bothered to start their own group, instead joining a group someone else made the trivial effort to start, then kick the group starter?
- A ready solution (I’ve no idea how complex or simple to program) would be to have the group starter be immune to kicks unless inactive for the standard inactive time. Imo, it would be a great idea to give that kind of protection to people who could be bothered to get off their kitten.
So if legendary weapons are core content, that means that Anet has been continuously releasing content into this game through the gem store. All of those weapon skins that are released on a monthly basis must be new content after all.
Wrong. Black Lion skins are nothing but cash bait, whether bought via RL cash or gold —> gems. Legendary items are the game’s most visible endgame goal. That’s a massive difference in emphasis, even if both are skins.
You’d be better off pointing to the fact that Legendary items have always required broader play preferences — except if bought on the TP. Still, it seems sort of silly to emphasize platforming skills in an MMO. Maybe that’s just me.
I can enjoy dark souls, why, in spite of difficult and extremely deadly, has a sense of victory, prestige and you can reach a feeling of challenge rewarding every time surpasses anything. I honestly can not find the same feeling in HoT.
Maybe I get this topic deleted or have my account banned just trying to vent all frustration that the HoT jungle game caused me. Probably this topic will be trolled. But I’ll be honest, it’s better this than give up the game. Still I love the GW2 Core, fractals, pvp, dungeons and WVW.
I doubt expressing your frustrations will get this topic closed or your account banned. I see nothing insulting or offensive in your OP. Not to say a thread closure won’t be forthcoming if the backlash from other posters gets hinky.
As to your issues, I’m afraid I’m having a hard time understanding what is causing them. If you can play Dark Souls with some success, if you can sPvP and WvW in GW2 with some success, I have to wonder if it’s your approach to HoT that is causing the problems. I don’t find the HoT content harder than fighting players in either PvP mode, in fact it’s a lot easier. If anything, mys skills are below average.
That’s not to say that I don’t find HoT frustrating. I do. However, my frustrations come from the timers, from the looping nature of maps, featuring a lot of can’t get there from here, and because I don’t want to look up cheat videos to get to exploration objectives. That last results in a lot of having to restart from the very beginning.
I’m glad you won’t be giving up the game. Hang in there. ANet is working on another XPac, and according to NCSoft, has learned its lessons about how to make an XPac that is going to more enjoyable for more players.
It sounds like what you enjoyed about the core game was that it was a really laid back experience that didn’t demand too much of you. That is true, but Anet’s metrics proved that very experience was leading to a lack of player retention.
Citation needed. Good luck with that. Metrics cannot capture why players do things, only that they do them. There are a huge number of possible reasons for lack of retention. If you’re going to extrapolate, then you’d also need to explain why such a large number of accounts with active monthly logins did not adopt HoT.
- If in fact the lesson that was learned is spot on with the reasons that HoT sales did not meet expectations
- If ANet produces a new expansion that addresses those issues
…then the whole, "Buy the latest XPac and get everything from before might serve ANet in good stead. Those who bypassed HoT would not need to purchase HoT to get current. I can’t help but think this might boosts sales among HoT non-adopters, despite the inevitable, “I should get a discount because I bought X.” posts.
Frankly, I expected total GW2 revenue to be back in the range of quarters prior to HOT, i.e., around 20,000 – 22,000 Million KW. That it’s about half again that suggests that gem sales are up, that HoT boxes continue to sell, or both. This is undoubtedly a plus for the game, and removes in my mind the idea of a possible sense of desperation to the Legendary postponement. This strengthens (again, in my mind) the likelihood that the postponement was caused by massive inefficiencies in the Legendary Journey creation process.
Build diversity that survives contact with the players is a myth. Developers can attempt to balance different options until the heat death of the servers, but players drive the meta considerations, and meta specs are always going to be the one believed to perform the best in a given situation. HoT could have had four elite specs per profession and there would still be a best one.
Actual build diversity already exists, it just doesn’t exist in metas. While it would be nice to see more elite specs, I very much doubt ANet is going to be pushing them out in multiples per XPac.
@ DeanBB
It would be nice, but I very much doubt Anet is going to be in a hurry to throw multiple new professions per XPac, either. If nothing else, imagine the flood of, “Three new professions? We should get three new character slots as part of the XPac price!” posts.
So we could say that anyone who bought GW2 has a valid account, but at what point are they no longer considered valid around here?
Let’s look at some “things”…
Player A bought GW2, plays regularly or semi regularly or every even every few months… I would consider that valid, no real argument here.
Player B bought GW2, hasn’t played in 1 year or 2 years or 3 years and may or may not come back right? Is that player really valid enough to lock up a name game wide? Is it not enough of a b2p perk that player B can log back in anytime?
Ok so now we have p4f… Player C makes free accounts because that’s valid. They played for a week and haven’t logged in for 6+ months, or eventually 1 year or 2 years and on… Is that account valid enough to lock a name or names game wide?
So technically I could make a bunch of free accounts, locked up names and never logged in again and still be considered valid?
So let’s look at anets end on this now…
Let’s say there were 8 million copies of GW2 sold… There are also X number of p4f accounts…
Does Anet say “We have 8 million valid b2p players and X million valid p4f players currently”? No they don’t. They say units sold and registered users when touting stats, but all those factors are judged internally by monthly concurrent users. The last speculated monthly concurrency rate was 3 million back in October 2015.
We all know that there are registered accounts with names used that have not logged in for a long long long time, so are those players truly valid enough to prevent current players or new players from using those names?
Valid has to be better defined here I think…
ANet already has a definition. They’ve even shared it. When ANet takes the servers down. There is no statute of limitations. They don’t even purge names from banned accounts.
The potential cost for purging names is that an old player returns, rages that “his” name is gone and decides not to stick around after all. Also, a free player might get some cash and decide to buy, but won’t if he sees “his” name gone. It doesn’t take much to cheese some people off. Also, Anet will once again be perceived to have broken promises, this time accurately. Anyone whose names are lost and who returns might be angry.
The potential benefit is that for every name purged, one player who might want it will get it. The others will still be left begging. Not all of the names purged will be reused. There’s no way to say that the potential benefit would be larger than the potential cost. This is especially true when this game has many ways to easily get unique names.
If you have to “force” people into the content youve created, you might have created bad content.
If you know that you have to “force” people into content that they paid for, then it certainly seems as if you are knowingly selling bad content.
This. The forums taught ANet that they could ignore “fun” as a metric and instead could use rewards to lead players to whatever they produce, whether it be something mainstream like the story or niche stuff like adventures.
And then, if you look a few posts above, you’ll find there are players who tag story as random crap too.
No content can satisfy everyone’s tastes so, what’s the solution then?
The only reasonable one seems to be about not gating absolutely anything behind any kind of content for a really bland progression system, and even then we would still have a problem with each player’s preferences: Getting some skin or mini might be more relevant than capping masteries for a lot of players so maybe those shouldn’t be locked behind specific content either.
I wouldn’t expect the end result of this to be any good.I’m perfectly aware that, as someone who likes adventures, I belong to a minority, so I don’t really have any problem with ANet unlinking masteries from them or making them easier to get.
Some people have proposed to award minis, skins or some other “not progression related” items instead. The truth is, that would still upset a lot of players. In fact, already happened with some collections, and those never required anything beyond silver.
In the end, it looks like the only way to satisfy some people would be by making adventures completely irrelevant or, even better, removing them from the game altogether, and that’s a really dangerous approach.
Story is central to the MMO genre, or has been since WoW, anyway. Quests, or the GW2 version, events, are also a part of core MMO gameplay. Mini-games, not so much, never mind to the extent ANet has emphasized them in HoT. I have absolutely no problem with skins/rare drops being behind specific content — as that’s a part of core MMO gameplay and has been since the get-go.
I just object to the core progression system of the XPac being behind side-track content which has little to nothing to do with the story or lore, and which cannot be played with my character build. I have no problem with that content existing. I have no problem with it offering rewards players can’t get elsewhere. Just not Mastery points.
I’m not sure a system that provides endgame rewards which takes “hours” is really a grind. That said, crafting is a pain in the kitten, and has been since “craft Ascended Weapons” was put in.
Unfortunately, the reason that so many mats are required is to fuel the economy. Remember, nodes are shared, not exclusive, and the clamor for reward revamps since the game was young has led ANet to provide scads of blues and greens which get salvaged into more mats. Without those requirements to fuel demand, both nodes and salvaging would not be worth the time.
This is not changing.
Mastery system would have been great if they had left out mastery points. The mastery points just force players into content they normally would never choose to play. Experience filling the mastery bar should have been enough to get the mastery.
I think that was entirely the point as to why they have it like it currently is.
Yeah, I completely agree, that’s what they’re doing. I wish they’d stop that kitten as it relates to core progression systems. Using optional rewards to incentivize optional content is fine, but the stand-in for the expanded level cap usually present in XPac’s is not really optional — it’s something everyone who buys it will want.
If you have to “force” people into the content youve created, you might have created bad content.
If you know that you have to “force” people into content that they paid for, then it certainly seems as if you are knowingly selling bad content.
This. The forums taught ANet that they could ignore “fun” as a metric and instead could use rewards to lead players to whatever they produce, whether it be something mainstream like the story or niche stuff like adventures.
I suspect that removing the cost was fairly trivial, but removing the routine that causes armor damage in the first place would not be.
I’m wondering whether anyone would use this proposed “feature.” Essentially:
- People paid for a buy-to-play game. That means they can come and go at will.
- Sure, someone can decide to quit, but that does not mean they will never change their mind.
- The “feature” would make returning impossible, thus removing the “return when you want” benefit the person paid for.
- The proposed “feature” might benefit people who want a specific name, it might not. It would in no way that I can see benefit the person who would be deciding to use it. Dropping the potential to return has a potential downside and no upside.
I suppose there might be some people who’ve recognized they have addictive tendencies and need to remove temptation completely or fall back into patterns they know are bad for them. For most such people, just uninstalling would work, as doing so would remove the possibility of impulse play.
There were actual rat traps there before, but they were replaced with the bear traps during the New Player Experience because ANet was concerned that some players wouldn’t see the tiny traps.
Honest. >.>
No, really. <.<
Why have several of the game’s reward systems shifted from “a nice little extra for playing” to “do this if you want that”? Either:
- Anet is proud of what they’ve built. Before launch they talked about people playing because it’s fun. The player-base (or at least a vocal part) made it clear they weren’t going to repeat stuff over and over without some incentive besides just fun. Now, ANet uses that realization to point to the various things they’ve built, choosing to emphasize (perhaps) the things that are under-utilized because they don’t offer a rare (like World Bosses do).
- A desperate attempt to keep the game afloat by using rewards to get people to try things they aren’t normally inclined to try, thus increasing and/or extending their play-time.
I’m guessing there’s a little bit of both.
Large amounts of material requirements are what fuel the economy. However, if you’re someone for whom the goal is what’s important, but the process of getting to the goal is …
… definitely not fun …
…then the whole thing is going to seem onerous and excessive. I’m not sure that’s a good idea for player retention — however, long-term goals are also important for player retention.
I’d normally have no problem with the idea that GH goals are long-term objectives, and that players should just relax and add to them when it’s convenient, rather than plugging away doggedly if that’s not their preferred way to play the game. However, since ANet thought it necessary to remove guild perks already earned by existing guilds, I’m going to side with the OP on this one, even if I’m benefiting by selling mats.
The old perks, earned via influence, were rewards that accrued via playing the game however one liked. The new system seems more inclined to shovel players into specific content (in this case whatever offers the best gold and/or mat return). This is not the first, nor is it likely to be the last, time that ANet has seen fit to shift from pushing fun to pushing specific things. Maybe it’s necessary to preserve the game. I’m not in a position to judge that. However, it has definitely been a step away from the game being fun, and apparently not just for me.
The purpose of gear stats in this game was twofold, now it’s three.
- Before: Certain stat combos, specifically heavy survival oriented stats, were useful either: (1) for people who don’t have the perception and reactions to use the twitch active defenses the game offers to its fullest; and/or (2) for the PvP modes in which a combination for high defense and sustain produces a bunker build that is especially useful for roaming in World v. World or point holding in Conquest. Remember, all stat combos do not need to be relevant all through the game by everyone to have their existence justified.
- Now, a third purpose has been introduced in raids, as noted by onevstheworld.
The meta reason to have stats on gear is also twofold: (1) it’s more familiar to MMO addicts; and (2) it provides a (shallow but time consuming or expensive) pursuit to get the best stats (for those who like that sort of thing) and it helps drive the economy by creating the demand for crafting materials.
Was it not Wildstar that got so hated because it was an extreme Elitist game? They lost a lot of players because they didn’t cater to the casuals. I may be wrong and or they could have changed their ways, I have never played it just stating what I have heard.
I did play WS, and it had two problems:
Raids, the primary goal of their endgame, were not very accessible. In order to get to do raids, players had to complete too many preparatory activities. Given that the MMO player-base as a whole gets older every year, and that can often mean having less time, this was not a good idea.
Imo, GW2 did not make that mistake. Afaik, there are gates to raid in GW2, but the one imposed by ANet only consists of needing to buy HoT. The gear/LI gates to get into a PuG group, that’s a player thing.
Carbine found on exit summaries that a lot of people preferred to play solo. Since the game had very little to nothing for the solo player to do at max level, they bled lots of players. It’s my understanding they were planning to introduce solo endgame stuff. Whether they’ve done so, or whether it’s any good, I’ve no idea.
In this area, ANet implemented a ton of stuff one can solo in core, but offered less of that in HoT. Some of that is that HoT is small compared to core, so there’s less to do for everyone by comparison. The only content area which compares to core in volume is map metas. There are event chains in all core areas, though they vary in scope. However, only DT, SW, Straits of Devastation, Teq and Wurm are analogous to the HoT metas. Another part is that what there is includes things like map exploration that most people are going to need others around to complete, even if they can do most of it solo.
So you are saying its a good thing that one person can carry an entire group of bads?
Absolutely! Isn’t that the whole point of even bothering to playing a fantasy game to start with, to be the hero?
What other reason would someone have to continually improve their abilities and skills if they can’t directly augment the entire groups chance of success?
Think about it, If the entire groups chance of victory is contingent upon the ability of their worst player, not the best, there is no driving force to improve unless you are the worst player.
Ideally, the hardest group PvE content would demand a high level of play from all group members to succeed. I suspect the current raids don’t actually get to that level. However, I suspect they are at the level that most or all of the group must at least play competently.
A single character being the hero is the hallmark of single player RPG’s and heroic fantasy … well, I hesitate in most cases to call it literature. The GW2 story serves that purpose in GW2. MMO group content (and thus raids) is aimed, ultimately, at the demographic that came out of PnP RPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons. That stuff is aimed at groups, albeit that people can play with one player and a GM. In that game, a good GM will build the game around the capabilities of each of the characters. It’s rare that a single character will carry everyone else, though some amount of that happens in most groups I’ve seen.
This is also what a good raid would do. A hindering factor is that raids have typically been for larger groups. Ten, as in Gw2 raids, is about as small as I’ve seen. Designing encounters so that all ten shine in each one is difficult at best. The best I’ve seen is different encounters testing different capabilities.
I suspect in the future we might see game development evolve to the point where developers can produce content much more rapidly and that content will adapt to player actions. This might allow for the production of new stuff a lot more frequently, which might alleviate some of the repetition necessary in today’s genre. If the genre changed in those ways, we might see group content accessible to everyone, with systems linking players with different capabilities and adjusting the content to fit them, the way a good PnP GM will do. This would go a long way towards alleviating issues of exclusion.
I’m not sure I’ll live to see this, though.
In GW Anet balanced skills in PvP separately from PvE and attempted to keep the PvP meta in balance without impacting PvE. They did not mandate a purchase of EoTN by allowing those factional skills into PvP, and it was a smarter move. However, PvE elitists demanded those skills from groups, and it did hurt players without the Expac. Ursan anyone?
Now? They would rather leverage a HoT purchase. Same as nerfing Core guilds into nothing and taking features away, instead of adding to content people had for years.
And why would I buy HoT? Gliders annoy me. Gimmicky puzzle zones and mazes annoy me. The callous killing of Eir annoyed me. DE2 annoys me. I’m sick of Sylvari centric everything. I don’t want an ersatze Druid nor would I play one.
So. Why should I waste money on it. I’ll buy when they add features I want. I will not buy because they marginalize the core game to leverage it.
And yet, in GW, PvP metas changed to incorporate non-PvE skills from the later campaigns. I remember Searing Flames and Sandstorm meta builds, for instance. Icy Veins, the main skill in the Icy Veins spike, was introduced and only available in Factions. If you only PvP’d, you could just choose to buy the skill packs separately. So, it was not really that different. They may have done a better job of balancing, they may not have. I seem to recall a lot of complaints back then.
Complain all you want about HoT, but enough with the grass is greener stuff.
I was referring to the Faction skills from EoTN which did impact PvE disproportionately and were kept out of PvP totally. And for PvE, those same skills were a must have if you wanted groups. But, whatever.
Ah. Since the thread is about the perceived unfairness of HoT Elite Specs in PvP, I felt that skills used in PvP in GW were a better comparison than the PvE skills. I guess I can see why you’re unhappy with the PvE skills from GW, but I think they’re at best peripheral to the topic.
In GW Anet balanced skills in PvP separately from PvE and attempted to keep the PvP meta in balance without impacting PvE. They did not mandate a purchase of EoTN by allowing those factional skills into PvP, and it was a smarter move. However, PvE elitists demanded those skills from groups, and it did hurt players without the Expac. Ursan anyone?
Now? They would rather leverage a HoT purchase. Same as nerfing Core guilds into nothing and taking features away, instead of adding to content people had for years.
And why would I buy HoT? Gliders annoy me. Gimmicky puzzle zones and mazes annoy me. The callous killing of Eir annoyed me. DE2 annoys me. I’m sick of Sylvari centric everything. I don’t want an ersatze Druid nor would I play one.
So. Why should I waste money on it. I’ll buy when they add features I want. I will not buy because they marginalize the core game to leverage it.
And yet, in GW, PvP metas changed to incorporate non-PvE skills from the later campaigns. I remember Searing Flames and Sandstorm meta builds, for instance. Icy Veins, the main skill in the Icy Veins spike, was introduced and only available in Factions. If you only PvP’d, you could just choose to buy the skill packs separately. So, it was not really that different. They may have done a better job of balancing, they may not have. I seem to recall a lot of complaints back then.
Complain all you want about HoT, but enough with the grass is greener stuff.
. If you can’t overlook this minority then I guess sticking to environments where failure isn’t as strong a possibility is the best option and there isn’t anything wrong with that.
It’s never a question of failure, It’s a question of elitism and exclusion.
- snip for brevity -
In fact, it is the people that say “Need to prove your Worth to Join” that are the ones that fear failure.
Not wanting to fail does not mean fear of failure in all cases. Exceedingly few people want to fail. It’s my guess that, for a lot of players anyway, the more they’ve succeeded the easier the raid has become for them. The easier something is, the less tolerance a lot of people will have for failure.
Some raiders know they can beat the content because they have beaten it, sometimes many times. That’s a quite different place from knowing that the other guy may better you in PvP or WvW.
Rewards — such as they are — in the two PvP modes are poor by comparison to PvE. thus, participation is more likely to be because: the player likes the gameplay. There is a lot less sameness to the gameplay in PvP. There’s satisfaction in beating another player, and frustration in losing. There’s also excitement in knowing you might see something unexpected from the opponent. That’s one reason devs shake up PvP metas, to lessen the sense you’re facing the same thing all the time.
In raids, there are no rewards for wipes. It’s a fact of life in MMO’s that rewards are used to entice players into repeating the same stuff over and over. In raids, or any PvE content, really, once the content is learned and one is playing by rote, the lack of newness can equate to boredom. Thus, the rewards. If you’re wanting to get the thing over with to further the reward, there will also be less (or no) tolerance for dragging the process out. Of top of that, raids take time, and failure extends that time. We’re not all kids anymore, and time can be short for a lot of people.
Are there any players who fear wipes? Maybe. However, I don’t think we have to look further than the idea that in content where one knows what to expect, and where one has succeeded before (in some cases, many times) there is less tolerance for wasting time. I believe lack of patience is a much more likely underlying cause than fear.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419
There is an activation key for Heart of Thorns separately or will I have to start a new account with the core game + HoT? @@
There is one key, which does one of two things, depending on how you apply it.
- If you apply the key to your existing account that has already unlocked core, it will add the HoT permissions to that account.
- If you apply it to a new account, it will unlock both HoT and core for that account. The “free core for new accounts” is basically an acknowledgement that the game is 3+ years old and can be played for free (with some restrictions) anyway.
If activity participation is a daily, it must WORK.
I think we can all agree on this one. I suspect there will be a red face or two in the dev team regarding that particular bug. I assume it is related to putting crab toss back into the rotation but I can’t see it being fixed in time for us to do it today.
PvE dailies should offer a choice of 5 or 6 tasks rather than the 4 we have now.
And they should make the events region specific, not map specific. I hate doing events where everyone is crammed into one sub 80 map and zergs are fighting over mobs that die in one hit, if you’re fast enough to get to the event before it’s over.
This is my complaint as well. It’s not bad in the HoT maps or as bad in Orr, but in 2-25 zones, sometimes even in Fields of Ruin, it’s the silliest gameplay I’ve ever seen in an MMO. Players run to the mob spawn point and attack empty space with their AoE attacks or spam their #1 attack so that when the mobs appear, they might get credit. I say might, because it doesn’t always work if the mobs die instantly on appearance.
Changing it to regional would alleviate this to some extent, and shouldn’t be a huge fix.
What’s the actual trick to kill this boss?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Slay_the_Shatterer#Walkthrough
Here’s a little light reading. Good luck.
As noted by DoctorDing, it is also required that you be in a map shard that has people who also know this. Just as with Teq, you are unlikely to find that shard randomly, so do as he suggests and taxi via the LFG. In the unlikely event you don’t know what taxiing is: find a group advertising the Shatterer kill, join it, click on someone’s blacked out portrait and select Join in Blazeridge Steppes. Once there, you can leave the group so they can continue to taxi others. If you get the map is full message, look for a different taxi. If there is none, you’re probably SOL unless someone organizes and instructs the map you’re in.
I don’t think raids are “bad” necessarily, but anytime we get this type of content, in any game, it does seem to bring out the less than savory side of people. It just highlights how terrible a lot of people are. Its frustrating. Its sad. Makes me fight that much harder to pound some sense into people.
I’m going to disagree that raids “brought out” behavior. If anything, I see less complaints about exclusionary behavior with raids than I did back when this sort of thing was going on in dungeons. Take that with a grain of salt if you will, but I forum a lot, probably too much.
.Also, I tend to wonder how “terrible” a large number of raiders would be if players didn’t join PuG raid groups that post requirements unless they met those reqs. There seems to be an implicit assumption in the discussions about “toxicity” and exclusion that players ought to just take anyone, that they’re being selfish and “toxic” if they don’t. Adopting that assumption and joining a group that wants something you aren’t bringing is selfish. Doing so involves placing one’s desire to get into a group now, without making the effort to form one’s own group, over the expressed desires of others.
That said, every MMO I’ve played that has any harder, instanced group content has what I’d call a Catch-22 effect. If you’re late to the party for any reason, you’ll miss the part where everyone was experimenting with that content. At that point, experience is usually required to join some groups, but you cannot get the experience if you can’t get a run.
The solution to this issue, though, is not to foist oneself on players who want convenience as much as one does. Fortunately, there are occasional teaching runs. Also, everyone has the option to recruit other players who are in the same boat in game or on 3rd party sites. That people don’t use these options is probably due to not having the patience to seek them out.
Some mobs do use boons, like the Risen Abomination and the Dredge Disaggregator. Perhaps the suggestion should be, “More mobs should use boons.”
I had the same issue, and submitted an in-game bug report. It looks like when you switched WvW Borderlands from Desert back to Alpine, you didn’t restore Master of Ruins in place of Master of Monuments or make ruins count as Monuments.
Sorry, no thanks. The game needs more opportunity costs in the build system, not less. Cosmetic mounts, knock yourselves out. Free (from a build perspective) speed boost OOC? Not until (I hope) the heat death of the universe.
Edit: I see from rereading the OP that the issue of “casting” swiftness is raised. That offers a different take than the title. If these “mount toys” permitted the player to use the build choices selected for movement, I’d be fine with that. I just don’t want there to be something you can purchase that removes the need to make the build choice. Another part of me notes that there are others who would want the speed boost to be inherent to the toy, regardless of build, and that I’m going to lobby against.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
I’m usually one who believes that more options is better. Since there are a number of folks who want the feature to stay and others who don’t want it, an options setting would, no the surface, seem like the way to go.
However, the game seems to currently be in a state wherein new content is needed to sustain interest. ANet has spent so very many dev resources, over and over, to invent, reinvent and re-reinvent systems and features. It’s time to focus on stuff to do.
Eh, I find the kitten filter amusing rather than troubling.
As to the issue of perceived over-sensitivity, people are — as noted — going to find ways to circumvent the forum owner’s intent. That’s why they add things to the filter (if in fact they do) and why the filter started with a lexicon that included alternative ways to express words that have a negative connotation which ANet doesn’t want expressed.
The acquisition of swiftness out of combat involves making choices about traits, skills on one’s bar, runes, etc. Making such a choice involves an opportunity cost. Opportunity costs are good for build depth, which is an important factor in making the game more fun for players who care about builds. Removing opportunity cost, no matter how slight, from a build system that is already fairly simplistic would be another step towards the over-simplification of MMO’s.
No, thanks.
I suppose that’s true enough, to that point, but remember that I’m arguing in favor of making the system more accessible to more people, causing greater overall happiness, while you’re arguing in favor of keeping things small and exclusive, to favor those at the top at the expense of everyone else. You cannot argue that those two positions are morally neutral.
I’ll grant that making an easier mode for raids that had zero impact on the enjoyment and satisfaction of those playing the harder mode would please more players, overall. However, I’m not convinced that it would please enough “more players” to justify the expense. It might impact the harder raids if the same team did it. It might impact other new content favored by other players if Anet pulled resources from elsewhere to implement it. Before you say again how it would be easy to make an easy raid, ANet’s representative has stated that only Anet devs are in a position to know that.
When it comes to exclusive rewards, though, you are arguing that one demographic, the size of which you cannot demonstrate, would be happier if ANet adopted your proposal. What is demonstrably so is that it would also cause unhappiness for a different demographic, the size of which neither of us can demonstrate. For all you know, your proposals would result in less overall satisfaction.
If there’s any right or wrong in this part of the argument about raid rewards, it lies in the following.
- ANet advertised early on that rare skins would be exclusive rewards in diverse content, specifically harder content. Thus, it’s likely that many players bought the game with that expectation because that’s what they wanted. Changing their approach at this point would be a breach of trust and faith with those players.
- ANet never stated that any player could avoid any content they did not like and have access to any skin they happened to fancy. Thus, no one should have bought the game with that expectation. While some players might indeed think that, “Play how you want!” means exactly that, they’ve read something into ANet advertisements that is not there, and have thus deceived themselves.
Finally, there is no “at the expense of” in the raid reward discussion. The path to those rewards is the same for every player. Choosing not to follow that path is in fact a choice.
That’s your opinion and you’re welcome to it, so long as you do not attempt to use it to justify excluding things from other players.
I’m not excluding anyone from anything. You made a choice, but don’t like the consequences. Now you’re making an appeal to authority to try to get your way. You could choose the other path at any time, so you are excluding yourself. You can’t put the onus for you not getting what you want on me.
And I am using that opinion to justify keeping exclusive rewards, including skins in the game. You, on the other hand, are using your opinion that you ought to be able to get anything you want doing things how you want to to justify changing the way the game’s reward system has been since before launch. Neither of us is right or wrong and neither of us has either the real or moral authority to arbitrate right or wrong.
Perhaps, but that is not the right place to put such a symbol. That symbol should be in the form of a title or nametag flair, not in the form of armor.
That’s your opinion, and you’re welcome to it. In case you haven’t noticed, I think after your expression of this opinion in multiple threads, Anet has heard you.
Nope, I’m not touching trophies, just armor.
Since it is obvious that ANet planned to treat armor skins as trophies from the beginning, yes, you are in fact proposing to touch trophies.
Hence when you obtain one of these exclusive skins you get a sense of accomplishment, this is especially true for raids. The instant you make legendaries drop from harvesting nodes the value is gone.
And nobody is changing that. They would continue to take a great deal of time and effort to earn. The only difference is that there would be multiple paths to that goal, some very high stress but shorter, and some much lower stress but longer, but both paths would add up to an equivalent effort over time. The value in achieving a difficult task would still be there.
In most fields of endeavor, there is a vast difference between pushing oneself to excel and putting in one’s time. You want the exclusive raid rewards to be gained for putting in time (easy mode), as well as for excelling (normal mode). Putting in time is not difficult, it’s just time-consuming. The two “ways” are not equivalent in any qualitative sense. So, no, the value in the rewards as symbols of overcoming difficulty would no longer be present. You’d be turning championship trophies into participation awards such as I’ve seen given out to every kid who tried out for a sport in grade school.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Personally, I’d rather ANet had skipped adventures entirely and put the resources into events, a new dungeon path, etc. I prefer content which involves playing the character in a massive world that involves struggle against monsters and the like, using the builds and weapons that the game comes with — not playing platforming games that have little to nothing to do with the character, the lore or the story.
That said, I imagine that some people like these mini-games. If they have to be in the game, so be it, but I think it’s a mistake to gate things that have to do with the actual fantasy world part of the game behind participation. It should not harm those who like them to have the rewards be something exclusive to the content, but not tied to one of the game’s major goals — or to the stand-in for an XPac level increase.
I think it would be better for ANet in the long run to design around the idea of avoiding negative impact to any demographic from rewards that are designed to entice players to play more. Obviously, there are limits. There will be inevitable conflicts between player interests. However, I don’t see it here, whereas I do with things like raids, PvP, etc.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.
My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.
There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.
Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.
I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.
The thing is, I’ve never even had to taxi for anything in core except Teq. I don’t consider SW core, though I suppose technically it is. The few times I’ve wanted to taxi there I’ve had no trouble.
Yeah, I get that it’s broken. I just don’t have a lot of faith in their fixes.
As to the next XPac being different, amen.
I think it’s just how the events are constructed. Objectives need to be completed all over the map to achieve the best results. The bosses require map-wide coordination as well. And since they work on a timer, the clock’s ticking to get organized and get moving. I don’t recall that being the case in pre-HoT maps.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. I can relate to the frustration of being unable to zone in and jump right in to the events. I do feel HoT does a poor job of delivering that level of convenience. On the other hand, I really enjoy the events when enough players participate.
Whatever the reason people feel they need to taxi rather than staying in the shard they land in, the fact is they do. I’ve never needed to taxi to anything in core but SW and Teq (never done Wurm). I also have enjoyed both Tarir and VB. I’m not sure, but I got a Mastery point in VB the other day and I think it means I’ve killed all 5 bosses. I haven’t found TD yet. On the other hand, I find both AB a miserable place to play if there’s no one else in sight. VB used to be, but has been OK since the recent changes.
No! Not just no! Heck, no! Not just heck, no! OMG, no! Not justOMG, no! Kitten, no!
The new way to acquire traits is way better. While they could revert the way traits are assigned once gained, but not the method to get them, I believe that opportunity costs are good for games. I think having to make hard choices makes for a better build system. Sure, I had a build or two that cherry picked a couple of Adept traits, and lost that capability. I can live with that. Unfortunately, neither iteration of traits (with some exceptions) really nailed the idea that traits later in the line ought to be better. Thus, cherry-picking could and did result in not really having to make as many hard choices. Under the current system, I’ve had to make some.
^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?
The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.
The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.
The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.
The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?
My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.
Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.
I like underwater combat, except on professions whose skills are so much less effective than their land-based skills. On Ele, for instance, staff seems so much more potent than trident, yet both are ranged weapons.
For instance, when I look at the wiki page,
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills
I see the following:
Fireball (Staff 1): base damage: 404; scaling (1.0?)
Magma Orb (Trident 1): base damage 136; scaling (0.4?)
Both are basic attacks. Magma Orb casts twice as fast, but has roughly a third of the base damage and only ~40% of the damage from scaling.
Lava Font (Staff 2): base damage: 1292; scaling (3.2?)
Boil (Trident 2): base damage: 176; scaling (0.51765?)
Both are AoE’s which damage over a 4 second duration, and remain where targeted (i.e., can be moved out of). The differences are: Lava Font’s area is 180, v. 240 on Boil, Lava Font is instant cast v. .5 seconds for Boil, and Lava Font has CD 6 seconds v. 10 for Boil.
I’m not sure is this is intentional or simply a matter of UW skills being thrown together to meet a rushed launch date and hardly, if ever, being touched since. If intentional, I’ve no idea why Ele’s only UW weapon is so weak by comparison with its land cousins.
Felt like it took a big hit but the recent update has many feeling that they might be finally understanding where they went wrong.
Many probably left for good after the suspension of the Legendary Development Team but I’d still wager that they are a fairly small group of people.
In general, likely still less than pre-HoT, but right now is probably the highest it’s been in months.
Is that “many people” based on your guild/friends’ list? If it includes people who threatened leaving in the Legendary suspension announce thread… well, I take forum announcements about leaving with a grain of salt.
I agree though, about the number leaving not being all that large. I still see about the same numbers everywhere I go. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether there are the same number of mega-server shards, so who really knows?
Suffice it to say, OP, that pop levels don’t seem significantly different seem to me. If you play in off-peak hours for the region, you’ll likely run into some scarcity, but popular things still draw a crowd, especially in prime times like evenings/weekends. Also, WvW might pick up when they bring back the Alpine Borderlands.
Why are most gem store items temporary?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419
Scarcity makes people purchase, even if it’s artificial scarcity.
If people know that luxury item X will be in the store forever and ever then they’ll frequently put off purchasing. There’s no rush because it will always be there. Since something better may come along they figure they might as well wait. If people know that item X is going to leave then it pushes them to decide to get it now as they’ll won’t be able to get it later.
There’s another reason, having to do with gold-to-gems. If an item is available indefinitely, some players might farm the gold to buy gems to get it. If it’s there for a short time, some of those players might not be able to farm the gold in time. If they still want the item, they’d have to use real money. While Anet makes money either way, getting cash out of players normally inclined to buy gems with gold would be a plus.
Is it not true that current raids can be completed by organized groups using alternatives to meta builds? I was under the impression it was possible (i.e., been done). Maybe I’m wrong.
GW2 build design intent was based around the idea of there being 3 roles: damage, control and support. It’s my impression that all three are good ideas in raids. Maybe I’m wrong.
It’s been my impression that both control and support are not all that connected to gear, although they can be to traits. What this means is that gear is primarily oriented around the survival-damage continuum. I see nothing wrong with that. One chooses as much survival gear as is needed if one is the aggro gatherer in the raid, otherwise one chooses damage. The discussion over the viability of Healing Power as a stat is separate. Maybe I’m wrong.
It’s also been my impression that a lot of players still associate the idea of build diversity with gear choice. That is not true in GW2. By design intent, the primary source of diversity is profession. By inference, the other sources are traits and weapon choice. Gear was definitely tertiary until the increase in toughness as an aggro mechanic in HoT. I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong about that.
The problem with overflows is that unless two conditions apply, any populated maps might as well not exist.
- There is a taxi in LFG (not always true depending on region and time of day)
- Once you access the group, you don’t get the “map is full” message when trying to “join in.” (often not true, at least for me)
There are other reasons that the core maps seem full.
- HoT did not sell, in all likelihood, to a majority of the active accounts. The reported sales numbers for Q4 support that conclusion.
- The majority of players going to those core maps are doing so for meta events or similar activities that are likely to attract a crowd.
- If it’s a map where people are only exploring/leveling, the odds are that the region’s entire population in that map is in the same shard.
- Play for Free players do not have access to HoT maps.
I’m of two minds about HoT. As to the mobs themselves, while they are harder than a lot of core mobs, they aren’t harder than some new iteration Risen or Krait, and not harder than mobs in the Silverwastes. I just find the nature of the zones confounding — and I’m not the type who likes to use online “help” sites. Having to fight through the same mobs over and over and over in trial-and-error runs to get where I’m going gets really tedious and very much not anything I’d call fun.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)